test-object

Definitions

noun In microscopy, a minute object, generally organic, whereby the excellence of an objective, more particularly as to defining and resolving power, may be tested, only superior objectives being capable of showing such objects, or of enabling their markings or peculiar structure to be clearly seen.

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If Jones was right in his guess that his booster had increased the speed of the ship by sixty to the fourth power, it would have gone some millions of times as fast as the distress-torpedo, for a brief period (the ratio was actually something over nineteen million times) and it happened that nobody had been able to measure the speed of that test-object.

Operation: Outer Space Murray Leinster 1935
Regarding the large S.E. E.uatoreal, the Report states that 'On the character of its object-glass I am now able to speak, first, from the examination of Mr Otto Struve, made in a favourable state of atmosphere; secondly, from the examinations of my Assistants (I have not myself obtained a sight of a test-object on a night of very good definition).

Autobiography Airy, George Biddell, Sir 1896
It is the combination of the two features which makes it a test-object.

Half-hours with the Telescope Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a Means of Amusement and Instruction. 1862